“Went home.”
“You…you should go home too.” I inch my foot slowly out of the car door. “I’ll just –”
I lunge to run away and drown myself in the nearby puddle of homeless person piss, but Jack yanks me back again, reaches over me, and slams the door shut. I pull on the handle.
“You child-locked it!” I gasp.
“Stay here until you feel better,” He grunts.
“I feel fine! I’m at least sixteen fines,” I assure him. “Look! I can breathe! I can use my legs!” I do bicycle motions in the seat. “I can headbang!”
I bang my head twice and Jack has the fortuitous intuition to roll down the window seconds before I vomit out of it. When I empty my stomach of the last remnants of my noodles, I gasp and pull my head back inside.
“What? Do you get off on watching my fantastic gastrointestinal fireworks? Is that why you’re keeping me against my will?”
“You aren’t well,” He insists stonily. “Sit and relax until you do.”
“Relax! Please, tell me, how the hell I can relax when the world’s biggest snowman is sitting next to me, talking like he has a heart? It’s out of character! It’s….it’s disgusting! You aren’t Jack! You’re some fucked-up alien from Zabadoo here to take his body back for your beautiful specimen collection, aren’t you?”
Jack starts the car. I yank at the door handle twice as hard.
“C’mon, you piece of baby-proof shit! I’m sure babies have actually shit themselves trying to open you, but I won’t! I just puked the next twenty-four hours worth of shit out! I’ll get you open, I swear I will, or I won’t and then I’ll be captured by extraterrestrials and, well, it was nice knowing you but really I think whoever invented you made a huge error in judgment since they didn’t take Zabadoobians trapping a fabulous teenage girl in their car into consideration -”
Jack takes a sharp left turn and the momentum squashes my face against the window. I quickly put my seatbelt on.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“I’m taking you on a date.”
I immediately regret ever hiring him for tonight. And also living. Jack must see my panic, because he sighs.
“It’s your first date, right?”
“Uh, yes? But, you don’t really have to do that? Considering it’s not something you want to do? And I don’t really need one, or like, even really want one? Dates are for people in love and that’s never going to happen for me again so I really don’t think it’s necessary –”
“It’s an apology. For how I acted yesterday. Nothing personal, and nothing romantic.”
“Oh.” I brighten, but some buried part of me sinks. I punt the feeling out of this universe along with the last of Zabadoobians. “Right. An apology. Okay.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I don’t want you to be alarmed, but I think you might be crazy. I am the opposite of disappointed. I am oppopointed. Disaposite. There is nothing I would like more than to go on a not-date with my worst enemy who just went on a date with my friend, which, by the way, I paid him to do -”
“You’re also babbling.”
“And I’m babbling! How cool is that! Just drive so we can get this over with, you alien!”
He smirks and steps on the gas.
-12-
3 Years
17 Weeks
5 Days
We drive forever. Fiveever. Sixever. Sevenhundredever. We wind past decrepit buildings skinned with age and scabbed with graffiti. A murder of crows fight over a loaf of bread a homeless person scatters about. Huge neon signs in Korean and Chinese blare in all colors of the rainbow, the smell of fried chicken and sesame seeds pouring in. It’s the exact opposite of the clean, fancy area of town I was vomiting all over.
“Are you taking me to a black-market butcher to sell me for body parts?” I politely inquire. Jack pulls into a parking space and takes the keys from the ignition.
“Get out. It’s a bit of a walk.”
He gets out and I follow his stride down the dark sidewalk.
“You know, if you wanted my liver, all you’d have to do is ask nicely. I’m sure we could work something out. With my fist in your face.”
“Body parts aren’t on the menu with you. Tonight, or any night in the future.”
“Oho! Was that a double-entendre? Thanks, but when you’re as fantastic as I am you can’t afford to sleep with nerds.”
He suddenly veers right, into a tiny alleyway. So this is where I meet my end – in an alley of Chinatown, chopped up into little pieces and shipped to China to replace some old businessman’s cirrhosis-infested liver. My eyes widen when he pushes open a tiny door and walks three or so steps down into a restaurant. A counter sits in the middle, glass cases holding gleaming ruby slabs of tuna and pale swathes of yellowtail. Sushi chefs expertly slice and dice and mash rice. Only a few people are at the bar, and the hostess, a short Japanese woman with a dimpled face, quickly darts to us.
“Jack!”
“Fujiwara-san,” He inclines his head. She reaches up and, to my utter shock, pinches his cheeks like he’s a child.
“Look at you! All bones, no fat! You haven’t been eating!”
“I eat well enough.” Jack insists, not even trying to push her away as she straightens his shirt collar for him. Her dark eyes lock onto me, and she smiles.
“Who is this? A friend? You’ve never brought any of your friends before. Was beginning to think you didn’t have any!”
“She’s not my fr - ” He starts, then gives up. “Fujiwara-san, this is Isis Blake.”
“Ahh, Isis-chan!” Fujiwara bows, and I bow back and almost take down the tiny bamboo plant on the counter. “It’s good to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” I say. Fujiwara turns to Jack.
“Usual?”
He nods. “Please.”
“Right this way!” She crows. She totters in traditional wooden sandals over to the bar, seating us at two stools. She’s quick with the drinks – two cups of bitter, yet refreshing green tea. She hands us the menus and pats my back, black eyes gleaming into mine.
“Please enjoy.”
“I will. Um. Thank you.”
Jack peruses the menu in silence. The Asian couple next to us eats and laughs, talking with their sushi chef in Japanese.
“How did you find this place?” I whisper.
“Fujiwara’s daughter was a client of mine,” He says. “She took me here once. It’s got the best sushi in Ohio.”
“And…what about the client?”
“She left. Got married, actually, to an American businessman, and went back to Japan.” He opens his wallet and pulls out a picture of a fat, happy Japanese baby in a Santa hat, showing it to me. “She sends me pictures of their son.”
“Do they all do that?”
He puts the photo back. “No. Yukiko was special. She...understood me more than most do. She was the only client of mine who was held my interest for more than five seconds. So we keep in touch.”
“That’s actually pretty cool, that you got to meet so many different people.”
He shrugs. The sushi chef says something to him in Japanese, and he talks back in surprisingly smooth-sounding Japanese. He looks to me.
“Do you know what you want?”
“This thing.” I stab at the menu. “Whatever that is, I want two of it.”
He snickers and says something to the chef, who nods and starts chopping fish and taking out rice. We watch him work, since I don’t know what to say and Jack is quiet.
“They spend years washing rice,” He says finally.
“What?”
“To be a sushi chef, you spend years washing rice. Two, at cheap sushi places. Ten at the expensive, traditional ones.”
I suck in air. “Jesus! Just making rice? The entire ten years?”
He nods. I look at the rice with a newfound admiration. It’s gotta be some damn good rice.